What a wonderful week we have had in 3rd grade.  Our students are working so very hard on everything they are doing.  We have amazing children that we are just loving as we are really getting to know them.  We can't wait to share with you everything they are doing at parent-teacher conferences.  They are each a blessing and have been created with their own unique personalities which are shining through.

We take this very seriously as we have been given these children as a specific appointment from God and he has put them in our care each day with his perfect plan for their lives in mind.

Psalm 139:13-16
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

Here is what we have done this week:

Reading-In the story Because of Winn-Dixie, we have been studying our characters very deeply. This discussion has led us on some very serious conversations about life choices, passing judgement on others, and trying to understand and empathize with others.  This unit on character study lends itself so well to also talking about the character traits of Christians as "Image Bearers" of Christ. Everything your child reads this year is filtered through their lens of Christianity.  We have been talking about that during our mini-lessons and then as they go and practice in their own reading, they are also reading through the eyes of their Christianity.  This week we learned to listen to our internal voice to make connections with our characters and to continue to grow our ideas about our characters as we watch them change throughout the story.

Writing-In writing this week we have spent a lot of time working on our penmanship and complete sentence writing.  As we have worked hard on revisiting correct letter formation, we have also worked hard on publishing our first personal narrative.  We can't wait to share them with you at conferences.

Math- This week we focused on multiplying by factors of 6 and 8.  We used many different strategies to help us find the products.  We also focused on word problems and drawing pictures to help understand what mathematical operation needed to be used to solve a problem.  At this point we have learned all of our multiplication and division facts for factors 0-10 with the exception of 7’s, which we will study next week.  I am so proud of this group and their determination when they work in Math.  These concepts can be challenging but everyone has a wonderful attitude and does their best!

Science- Each child was given a research topic dealing with changes to the Earth’s surface.  Your child researched one of the following:  Volcanoes, Landslides, Erosion, or Earthquakes.  They then took the information that they found and created a Keynote presentation.  We will be finishing these up next week Monday and presenting them on Tuesday.  I loved seeing the students work so independently on these projects and their presentations are turning out great!!  I look forward to sharing them with you at conferences.

Bible- We focused this week on Day 6 and 7 of the Creation story.  We learned about Adam and Eve as well as the Garden of Eden.  Your children LOVE reading the story of creation right from their personal bibles and have so many great questions and observations about how sin entered the world.  We talked a lot about how God gave Adam and Eve free choice and how the choice was made to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  We also talked about how God gives us choices and how He desires for us to have a relationship with Him and follow Him daily. 

Upcoming Events

Parent Teacher Conferences  Tuesday, 10/21 4:20-8:40 and Wednesday, 10/22 3:00-8:40

NO SCHOOL  10/22-10/24